All it takes is a few testing sites that look like the BBC footage of PCR tests cross contaminating each other. If the virus aerosolizes easily, then it spreads in a lab and - boom - all the tests are positive.
One dirty lab could account for all of this. Without an open society machines get less maintenance, fewer people check on things in person, and obvious problems go unresolved.
this seems possible, esp if they have adopted some lab or testing methodology in hospitals that is divergent from others. it's sort of my prime suspicion as well.
I know people close to this space and have been asking this question for months. At first “oh, that can’t be it.” After the BBC video... “we’re taking that more seriously now...”
... just checked YT and couldn’t find it. They did an expose that showed how the pipette tips and the whole set up was dripping across lanes in the assay.
YT is taking down so much of the alternative narrative that they'll be left with absolutely nothing of any worth soon. It's part of the general collapse of the global human mind.
I think we should simply stop all testing, PCR or LFT, and stop all genomic sequencing (source of the scariants). Tanzania did this and their pandemic disappeared. Seek not and ye shall not find.
Positive tests are not cases. As I stopped arguing with dave, asymptomatic positives should not to be considered in population prevalence, they may not be illnesses. Despite how some want to minimize IFR estimate.
The US started out trying to save the ICU system, quickly became zero covid, which quickly became zero positives from hyper sensitive tests. PCR at high Ct done randomly might show snap shot prevalence including old cases with fragment RNA, but I worry fragment RNA might be other than SARS CoV 2.
Michigan has begun a down turn of positives, seasonality effects the hyper sensitive tests too!.
Minor observation: 30 month old grand daughter sent home from day care went to Pediatrician: positive flu, in north Boston suburb.
Hope it means SARS CoV 2 viral interference is waning.
Anecdotally from Michigan, the public testing place near our home (that would be people who just show up voluntarily to be tested) has not seen a lot of traffic lately, which would (anecdotally) support your point that it isn't symptomatic people causing the surge.
However on the flip side, a doctor friend who works in a local hospital says the surge does seem real to him, that patients hospitalized with COVID are actually sick because of COVID. Well, there's two anecdotes, for what it's worth.
We do test all student athletes. (Used to be that winter sports were banned, but Gretchen gave in to a lawsuit and she’s clawing back by forcing mandatory testing—also mask use during play. Unlike our neighbors.
Also we have fewer cumulative cases per capita than our neighbors—thanks to zero Covid pursuits over the winter including restaurant shutdowns. We are now catching up to our neighbors on this metric.
Link to their weekly data and modeling slide decks. I think the U-M modeling is ridiculous but a lot of that data is enlightening.
MI looks pretty much just like indianna and ohio on cumulative death and case counts per capita, so i'm not seeing much variance there and have not seen and evidence that lockdowns or mask use reduces either.
there's no real gap to fill and this does not explain the big variance on diagnosis and symptoms. this is way out of line with other states. i have seen no other state like this and the case counts look nothing like the neighbors. this is all ER based data. it would not pick up athlete testing.
The problem with Mortality Per Capita is that IFR is so low (and uncertain) under 50 that I don't think we have any real idea of how many infections have occurred. Mortality per Capita is a measure of how well any given state has protected it's seniors (Michigan did...poorly).
Cases come from testing which comes from...where? Who gets tested? Hospital admissions, some symptomatic cases, hospital staff, first responders, random people who want to get tested all the time? I don't know that testing is actually measuring the working-class population. I think there's a dominant reservoir that would see similar infection rates (especially hospital staff) and then there's a massive unknown pool that may have been infected and thought they just had a cold/allergies (I've had about 3 since this began but never got tested). It's possible that testing doesn't reflect the general population and actual infection rates in the general public could be wildly different. Michigan's "third wave" could be proof that lockdowns do affect infection rates, but you have to pay the debt sometime.
The proof is going to be in the difference between Red and Blue states come the summer "tropical" H-S stimulus. Look to Florida and Texas to perform better then California due to less severe policy in the "off-season"
I live in Michigan and have been tracking our data all year. At this point, my best theory is that the virus is legitimately spreading but it's not anything to worry about (Your CLI vs Positive Test analysis is spot on). My best guess is that ER detections (hospital admission %) are probably the closest thing we have to measuring the infection rate of the general populous. The % positive test rate is inflated by contact tracing / symptomatic testing (most people don't get tested weekly). CLI is only ~1% of all admissions, so the stated hospitalization rate is likely from people that came in for other reasons, which seems like it should be a pretty random sample of the general population.
In-person classes, School sports, and COVID fatigue all mean that previously under-exposed demographics did change behavior after the Christmas holiday. I've had two guys in my department (both about age 30) and my dad (age 55) get sick in this wave. The two (single) guys in my department were both COVID faithful before Christmas and I guess had started to see people in person because it's really not feasible to go a year without seeing anyone ("lockdown" policy isn't sustainable, so effective or not, it's bad long-term policy). There's been a bunch of symptomatic cases in people from my office (all working at home) in the last month. 10x any of the previous waves. I have every anecdotal reason to think there was a legitimate widespread change in infection rate in March.
Best I can figure is the people crossing the Ohio or Indiana state line were a minority for a long time, and Ohio/Indiana have been far more open far longer and the younger demographics in those states were sufficiently exposed in earlier waves. Whatever seasonal stimulus has driven the March wave (also observed in even more restricted Ontario) didn't have the same impact on Ohio / Indiana because actual previous exposure rates are far higher then known "cases." The Michigan southern border counties are actually lighter then their immediate northern neighbors which might suggest that some regular contact with Indiana/Ohio residents did increase exposure rates and provide better outcomes in this "wave."
The only outlier to that theory is Downriver (Monroe) vs Toledo.
It would be interesting to see the same ratios from neighboring states. Also, is there anything notable in the identical pattern occurring during the winter surge? I guess it does look like ICU C19 occupancy at least rose in lockstep during that time period.
I think this pandemic will go down in history as the time the empirical scientists (with their chaotic measurements) overwhelmed the theoretical scientists with hysterical data. We need the calm pipe-smoking armchair thinkers to get back control. What's the difference between an experimental physicist, a theoretical physicist, and an engineer? The experimental physicist prods nature with a stick to see how it will behave. The theoretical physicist proposes a hypothesis of why nature behaved that way when you prodded it with a stick. The engineer builds a bigger stick.
Happen be in upstate michigan right now. North of Traverse City. Was hoping before I arrived that it would not be masker world. No, it is full-on masker world. Even outside. Very disappointing.
Ct threshold didn't change in MI? I think it changed in Jan for most states, but maybe no MI? i'm still not 100% sure it changed at all. It is so hard to figure out what is going on with Ct levels.
I agree that Michigan is quite an outlier. However, there has been some leak through to Northwest Ohio. You can see it when you look at Region 1 of the Ohio Hospital Association's hospital census data. Region 1 (Northwest Ohio) has experienced a much sharper rise than other regions over the last month or so, like a muted version of what Michigan experienced. https://ohiohospitals.org/covid19data
This reminds of when the western wildfires stopped exactly at the US border with Canada. The fires that were supposedly caused by climate change just stopped at the nationally boundary...
i looked at ohio and Indiana and they look nothing like michigan. when you are finding 8X as much covid in ER as presents with symptoms and not only bucking the regional trend but having it stop right at the border, this is a data issue, not a natural one.
did you check ontario for a rise in testing level? that's often a big driver.
I accept your basic point about data manipulation of one kind or another. And
I understand there are travel restrictions across the Michigan/Ontario border. Nevertheless, the hottest spot in Michigan borders Ontario and the overall Covid curves look similar.
not sure we can read anything into that data without knowing the testing level. deaths are far lower than previous, so that makes me suspect ontario is just testing more and thus getting more "cases" from the same population or even a declining one.
many, many places have made actual declines in prevalence look like a rise in cases by just upping their sample rate (more testing).
I live in S. Ontario and have been following Jean Marc Benoit (an MD) on twitter. He's been tracking and posting updates on hospitalizations and ICU capacity, crucial info that just doesn't appear in corporate media. The same puzzle appears: 'Covid-related' ICU admissions not proportionately reflected in overall ICU census:
Only about half of this is attributed to Covid (which of course is suspect, given the patterns of ICU admission, not the mention the general reasons why any Covid attribution should be questioned). And why would there be such an unnatural spike in the other categories (pneum. etc)?
All very confusing, but does seem to point to a lot of incidental Covid attribution in hospitals, as you're seeing in Michigan.
Michigan does not border Ontario. There is at the very least a mile worth of water between them, and travel between them is severely restricted. I suspect the similar curves are more related to the way the bureaucrats are tracking cases and diagnosis rather that the idea that infected Michiganders go to Ontario and never to Ohio or Indiana.
All it takes is a few testing sites that look like the BBC footage of PCR tests cross contaminating each other. If the virus aerosolizes easily, then it spreads in a lab and - boom - all the tests are positive.
One dirty lab could account for all of this. Without an open society machines get less maintenance, fewer people check on things in person, and obvious problems go unresolved.
this seems possible, esp if they have adopted some lab or testing methodology in hospitals that is divergent from others. it's sort of my prime suspicion as well.
I know people close to this space and have been asking this question for months. At first “oh, that can’t be it.” After the BBC video... “we’re taking that more seriously now...”
What BBC video are you referring to? could you provide the link?
... just checked YT and couldn’t find it. They did an expose that showed how the pipette tips and the whole set up was dripping across lanes in the assay.
YT is taking down so much of the alternative narrative that they'll be left with absolutely nothing of any worth soon. It's part of the general collapse of the global human mind.
Thanks, I'll check Rumble. I'm sure YT censored it!
I think we should simply stop all testing, PCR or LFT, and stop all genomic sequencing (source of the scariants). Tanzania did this and their pandemic disappeared. Seek not and ye shall not find.
Positive tests are not cases. As I stopped arguing with dave, asymptomatic positives should not to be considered in population prevalence, they may not be illnesses. Despite how some want to minimize IFR estimate.
The US started out trying to save the ICU system, quickly became zero covid, which quickly became zero positives from hyper sensitive tests. PCR at high Ct done randomly might show snap shot prevalence including old cases with fragment RNA, but I worry fragment RNA might be other than SARS CoV 2.
Michigan has begun a down turn of positives, seasonality effects the hyper sensitive tests too!.
Minor observation: 30 month old grand daughter sent home from day care went to Pediatrician: positive flu, in north Boston suburb.
Hope it means SARS CoV 2 viral interference is waning.
Anecdotally from Michigan, the public testing place near our home (that would be people who just show up voluntarily to be tested) has not seen a lot of traffic lately, which would (anecdotally) support your point that it isn't symptomatic people causing the surge.
However on the flip side, a doctor friend who works in a local hospital says the surge does seem real to him, that patients hospitalized with COVID are actually sick because of COVID. Well, there's two anecdotes, for what it's worth.
Anecdotes are worth nothing.
Is the ratio different for other states?
We do test all student athletes. (Used to be that winter sports were banned, but Gretchen gave in to a lawsuit and she’s clawing back by forcing mandatory testing—also mask use during play. Unlike our neighbors.
Also we have fewer cumulative cases per capita than our neighbors—thanks to zero Covid pursuits over the winter including restaurant shutdowns. We are now catching up to our neighbors on this metric.
Link to their weekly data and modeling slide decks. I think the U-M modeling is ridiculous but a lot of that data is enlightening.
https://www.michigan.gov/coronavirus/0,9753,7-406-98163_98173_105123---,00.html
MI looks pretty much just like indianna and ohio on cumulative death and case counts per capita, so i'm not seeing much variance there and have not seen and evidence that lockdowns or mask use reduces either.
there's no real gap to fill and this does not explain the big variance on diagnosis and symptoms. this is way out of line with other states. i have seen no other state like this and the case counts look nothing like the neighbors. this is all ER based data. it would not pick up athlete testing.
The problem with Mortality Per Capita is that IFR is so low (and uncertain) under 50 that I don't think we have any real idea of how many infections have occurred. Mortality per Capita is a measure of how well any given state has protected it's seniors (Michigan did...poorly).
Cases come from testing which comes from...where? Who gets tested? Hospital admissions, some symptomatic cases, hospital staff, first responders, random people who want to get tested all the time? I don't know that testing is actually measuring the working-class population. I think there's a dominant reservoir that would see similar infection rates (especially hospital staff) and then there's a massive unknown pool that may have been infected and thought they just had a cold/allergies (I've had about 3 since this began but never got tested). It's possible that testing doesn't reflect the general population and actual infection rates in the general public could be wildly different. Michigan's "third wave" could be proof that lockdowns do affect infection rates, but you have to pay the debt sometime.
The proof is going to be in the difference between Red and Blue states come the summer "tropical" H-S stimulus. Look to Florida and Texas to perform better then California due to less severe policy in the "off-season"
I live in Michigan and have been tracking our data all year. At this point, my best theory is that the virus is legitimately spreading but it's not anything to worry about (Your CLI vs Positive Test analysis is spot on). My best guess is that ER detections (hospital admission %) are probably the closest thing we have to measuring the infection rate of the general populous. The % positive test rate is inflated by contact tracing / symptomatic testing (most people don't get tested weekly). CLI is only ~1% of all admissions, so the stated hospitalization rate is likely from people that came in for other reasons, which seems like it should be a pretty random sample of the general population.
In-person classes, School sports, and COVID fatigue all mean that previously under-exposed demographics did change behavior after the Christmas holiday. I've had two guys in my department (both about age 30) and my dad (age 55) get sick in this wave. The two (single) guys in my department were both COVID faithful before Christmas and I guess had started to see people in person because it's really not feasible to go a year without seeing anyone ("lockdown" policy isn't sustainable, so effective or not, it's bad long-term policy). There's been a bunch of symptomatic cases in people from my office (all working at home) in the last month. 10x any of the previous waves. I have every anecdotal reason to think there was a legitimate widespread change in infection rate in March.
Best I can figure is the people crossing the Ohio or Indiana state line were a minority for a long time, and Ohio/Indiana have been far more open far longer and the younger demographics in those states were sufficiently exposed in earlier waves. Whatever seasonal stimulus has driven the March wave (also observed in even more restricted Ontario) didn't have the same impact on Ohio / Indiana because actual previous exposure rates are far higher then known "cases." The Michigan southern border counties are actually lighter then their immediate northern neighbors which might suggest that some regular contact with Indiana/Ohio residents did increase exposure rates and provide better outcomes in this "wave."
The only outlier to that theory is Downriver (Monroe) vs Toledo.
It would be interesting to see the same ratios from neighboring states. Also, is there anything notable in the identical pattern occurring during the winter surge? I guess it does look like ICU C19 occupancy at least rose in lockstep during that time period.
I think this pandemic will go down in history as the time the empirical scientists (with their chaotic measurements) overwhelmed the theoretical scientists with hysterical data. We need the calm pipe-smoking armchair thinkers to get back control. What's the difference between an experimental physicist, a theoretical physicist, and an engineer? The experimental physicist prods nature with a stick to see how it will behave. The theoretical physicist proposes a hypothesis of why nature behaved that way when you prodded it with a stick. The engineer builds a bigger stick.
Happen be in upstate michigan right now. North of Traverse City. Was hoping before I arrived that it would not be masker world. No, it is full-on masker world. Even outside. Very disappointing.
Ct threshold didn't change in MI? I think it changed in Jan for most states, but maybe no MI? i'm still not 100% sure it changed at all. It is so hard to figure out what is going on with Ct levels.
I agree that Michigan is quite an outlier. However, there has been some leak through to Northwest Ohio. You can see it when you look at Region 1 of the Ohio Hospital Association's hospital census data. Region 1 (Northwest Ohio) has experienced a much sharper rise than other regions over the last month or so, like a muted version of what Michigan experienced. https://ohiohospitals.org/covid19data
Chris Godby is a good follow on Twitter for analysis of Ohio's data. https://twitter.com/chgodby
This reminds of when the western wildfires stopped exactly at the US border with Canada. The fires that were supposedly caused by climate change just stopped at the nationally boundary...
My friend, have you looked at Covid cases in Ontario? Michigan borders on Ontario and the Covid cases curve in Ontario is very similar.
i looked at ohio and Indiana and they look nothing like michigan. when you are finding 8X as much covid in ER as presents with symptoms and not only bucking the regional trend but having it stop right at the border, this is a data issue, not a natural one.
did you check ontario for a rise in testing level? that's often a big driver.
I accept your basic point about data manipulation of one kind or another. And
I understand there are travel restrictions across the Michigan/Ontario border. Nevertheless, the hottest spot in Michigan borders Ontario and the overall Covid curves look similar.
so why does it literally stop dead on the sothern border of michigan?
what ontario data are you looking at and have you sanitized it for testing level?
it seems implausible that this spread is so strong over a closed border and yet non-existent over 2 open ones.
You are making good points. Here's the Ontario data I looked at https://www.google.com/search?q=ontario+covid+cases&sxsrf=ALeKk00-mlH-OreU-6EiU7fHoVUaGNsjLA%3A1619125087322&source=hp&ei=X-OBYM3nEN-r0PEPpbOJwAg&iflsig=AINFCbYAAAAAYIHxb2rcqNnSoSXUXhY1he9d6IbiKzM0&oq=on&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAEYADIECCMQJzIECCMQJzIECCMQJzIFCAAQkQIyBwguEIcCEBQyCAgAELEDEIMBMgUIABCxAzIFCC4QsQMyCAguEMcBEKMCMgUIABCxAzoICC4QsQMQgwE6CwguELEDEMcBEKMCUKgEWKoGYOMTaABwAHgAgAFSiAGbAZIBATKYAQCgAQGqAQdnd3Mtd2l6&sclient=gws-wiz
not sure we can read anything into that data without knowing the testing level. deaths are far lower than previous, so that makes me suspect ontario is just testing more and thus getting more "cases" from the same population or even a declining one.
many, many places have made actual declines in prevalence look like a rise in cases by just upping their sample rate (more testing).
I live in S. Ontario and have been following Jean Marc Benoit (an MD) on twitter. He's been tracking and posting updates on hospitalizations and ICU capacity, crucial info that just doesn't appear in corporate media. The same puzzle appears: 'Covid-related' ICU admissions not proportionately reflected in overall ICU census:
https://twitter.com/JeanmarcBenoit/status/1386173315702734848
Testing volume has remained pretty constant:
https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data/testing-volumes-and-results
To complicate matters further, hospital admissions for pneumonia/ILI/infection/Covid combined have spiked dramatically since early March:
https://www.kflaphi.ca/aces-pandemic-tracker/
Only about half of this is attributed to Covid (which of course is suspect, given the patterns of ICU admission, not the mention the general reasons why any Covid attribution should be questioned). And why would there be such an unnatural spike in the other categories (pneum. etc)?
All very confusing, but does seem to point to a lot of incidental Covid attribution in hospitals, as you're seeing in Michigan.
US to Canada border restrictions are nearly absolute. 2 week quarantine required, testing on both sides. Almost no one wants to do that.
Michigan does not border Ontario. There is at the very least a mile worth of water between them, and travel between them is severely restricted. I suspect the similar curves are more related to the way the bureaucrats are tracking cases and diagnosis rather that the idea that infected Michiganders go to Ontario and never to Ohio or Indiana.
Amigo, I hate people who say "my friend" before applying the dagger.
Dagger? You are delusional.